Week 2: Blog Assignment One

      I really enjoyed reading and learning more about the Langevin Blog site that Jeniffer had posted in her last blog.  On this blog, I read many of the posts, but one author really stood out to me.  The author's name is Melissa Grey Shatterfield.
     When reading through many of Melissa's posts I was able to link what she was saying back to this course and the materials we have learned about so far.  One of the articles was titled The Adult Learner and Self Esteem. In this article the Melissa is relating something as simple as a Pilates class, to the theories of Malcom Rowles. I had never heard of this theorist until reading through the "Timeline of History of Learning" from our resources in week one.   She discusses the importance of "increasing or maintaining one’s sense of self-esteem is a strong motivator for engaging in learning."  I think that as we grow as Instructional Designers we will need to keep this in mind.  We need to be supportive and motivating for our learners to have an effective education.  
     Another article by this author that I found to be interesting and helpful, was one titled Next Generation Learning. In this article Melissa discusses how the use of social media is becoming more and more a tool used in learning. She mentions the use of blogs being a wonderful resource for enhancing and supplementing traditional trainings.  I know that within my teaching profession, we are often given suggestions of creating blogs or site in which we can have a direct connection with parents when needed.  We are moving past the paper newsletters that used to be handed out and sent home monthly, to a 24 hr. connections with our students and their families.  Many of our workshops and meetings have been held on computers through training websites and or video discussions.  

     This blog site I think is a wonderful tool to use for this course.  It provides many insights and relates to the materials we have been discussing and learning about so far.